848 BOARD OF ED. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.
NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE CTY. v. EARLS Ginsburg, J., dissenting
communal bathrooms." 242 F. 3d 1264, 1275 (CA10 2001). But those situations are hardly equivalent to the routine communal undress associated with athletics; the School District itself admits that when such trips occur, "public-like restroom facilities," which presumably include enclosed stalls, are ordinarily available for changing, and that "more modest students" find other ways to maintain their privacy. Brief for Petitioners 34.1
After describing school athletes' reduced expectation of privacy, the Vernonia Court turned to "the character of the intrusion . . . complained of." 515 U. S., at 658. Observing that students produce urine samples in a bathroom stall with a coach or teacher outside, Vernonia typed the privacy interests compromised by the process of obtaining samples "negligible." Ibid. As to the required pretest disclosure of prescription medications taken, the Court assumed that "the School District would have permitted [a student] to provide the requested information in a confidential manner—for example, in a sealed envelope delivered to the testing lab." Id., at 660. On that assumption, the Court concluded that Vernonia's athletes faced no significant invasion of privacy.
In this case, however, Lindsay Earls and her parents allege that the School District handled personal information collected under the policy carelessly, with little regard for its confidentiality. Information about students' prescription drug use, they assert, was routinely viewed by Lindsay's choir teacher, who left files containing the information unlocked and unsealed, where others, including students, could see them; and test results were given out to all activity sponsors whether or not they had a clear "need to know." See
1 According to Tecumseh's choir teacher, choir participants who chose not to wear their choir uniforms to school on the days of competitions could change either in "a rest room in a building" or on the bus, where "[m]any of them have figured out how to [change] without having [anyone] . . . see anything." 2 Appellants' App. in No. 00-6128 (CA10), p. 296.
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